Peter,
I never thought of CFM and you are right a vacuum pump does not have much. However we have a Kirby vacuum cleaner which I suspect will have sufficient CFM to to the job. Too, there is the problem of heating the plastic, what kind of heating thingy should be used.
I suspect I should go to YouTube to check out the making of vacuum molding implements.
I will not be doing any vacuum molding in the near future but it never hurts to have your ducks in a row before you start.
Robert

I'm going to have to do something like that, I have three cardboard boxes that have one to two layers of paint bottles and like Nick said I have to go through so many before I find the one I want, and that is even though about half of them have colored tops. I just counted them and there are more than 60 bottles and about 12 rattle cans.
My work area is a disaster, I'm not the most organized person in the world. If anyone came up to see it they'd want to know how I ever find anything in the mess. That is if they had the guts to ask in the first place.
Robert

I tried them both out. The ring light seems to do nicely, no shadows or reflections. The macro lens looks like it will do well however I can't use them together as only one at a time can be screwed onto the lens and Neewer (the macro lens compnay) doesn't make adaptors that will allow the ring light to go onto the macro lens. Bummer.
As soon as I can I'll post images made with the macro lens. There is much to learn here, I want to stop down to f16 or smaller but that means the exposure time is elongated. So far that has put the kabash on the image taking. However, tomorrow (May 2) I should be getting a new tripod so that should allow long exposures.
Robert

Recieved a ring light for my camera for macro photos of models and sub-assemblies. Also got a wide angle/macro lens for the same. Unfortunately there are some problems that will complicate picture taking but I won't go into that now.
Wednesday I will be getting a package of filters for our vacuum cleaner and a new tripod for my camera (another situation I won't go into now).
Robert